First week: Our Neighborhood of Vedado, near the Malecon. You'll see Hotel Nacional and Hotel Havana Libre (was the Hilton under Batista). The casa we stayed in was spacious and luxurious, but on top of / next to Radio Cuba and Cuba Aire and VERY noisy with suffocating exhaust. Bus loads of workers would be delivered from surrounding areas everyday to work. Our teachers came to our house. Rumba w/ Yohan, Guitar w/ Alberto. (Lucia got really good at Rumba!). & various friends of friends also came to call. Also, Around town, Havana Centro with Alberto, guitar teacher, & meeting some of his relatives who practice Santaria & live in a very humble abode (as do most). Note pink & green walls at Alberto's house. Love it!

My sublime neighborhood on the hill near the university my third week, above the deisel stench and out of the hustle bustle, where the 'old-school' kind of guys would get together every afternoon and play dominoes in little groupings every 1/2 block or so. In my guitar classes, i focused on learning the song 'Yolanda, a Trova / Nueva Cancion love song by Pablo Milanes, who is a Cuban national treasure. It became my theme song for the trip. Soooo juicy beautiful. Here sung by Mirtha, owner of our first casa, and her son, as i was packing up to leave for Casa #2. (and later by other musicians). Then bopping around Havana Vieja w/ adorable friend Beby, percussionist with the Rumba group, 'Aguiri-Yo'. In Havana Vieja, you are sure to find GREAT music at every turn. (Listen to INCREDIBLE guitar solo at @2:00 mins.)

More of my tranquil neighborhood 3rd week, lessons (Guitar, Folkloric, Percussion, Spanish, Salsa & Rumba) at "my" house (w/ people always wandering through, bringing water, setting up sound etc. - it takes a village to take a private lesson in Cuba). My little room, a dive, but good enough. More Yolanda. Dancing with my neighbors at their father's day party. The Rum was flowing and spirits high. Even in Cuba, i'm a 'home-body'. I would rather dance with the next door neighbors than go to (smokey, ear bustingly loud) clubs. I threw in footage of the younger gen dancing Reggaeton (90% of the party) & singing along every word. Reggaeton (thumbs down) is all the rage and hard to avoid. Ah, the dumbing-down of a generation. (i didn't say that.)

Three trips to the beach, with Raonel and various musicians and characters, taxi drivers who would stay with us the whole day and our friends Chi Chi and Jorge - fisher dudes, who adopted us, fed us, showed us how to spear fish (right!), (Jorge could hold his breath for minutes at a time while he dove @ 40' deep to spear). We snorkeled, swam, sang & danced, ate freshly caught fish, drank rum, and listened to the guys cavorting in their inimitable, incomprehensible so-called Spanish. & don't you love the NAMES they get, ie: Jacsel, Raonel, Yenima, Liorkis, Yoan, Mirtha, Glendice, which even they never spell or pronounce the same way twice.

RUMBA. OK what's not to love about Cuba? When adorable men break out in improvisational song about you? Luis Chacon, a renowned Rumbero & cohorts, Ricardo & Beby at UNEA. They were actually practicing for a father's day event, and just using my name as "filler", ha. Ok and here is my embarrassing attempt at Rumba. Yohan threw me to the wolves and made me 'solo' (rather than follow him). Rumba is a historically and uniquely Cuban dance - a playful game, where the man tries to "consumate" with a "vacunao", a symbolic act of sex, with a thrust of the head, foot, shoulder, arm, whole body etc, and the woman tries to fend him off by backing away, or covering herself, all the while, flirting & struttin' her stuff & making it clear who calls the shots!

Club 1830 - Everyone goes there on Sundays 4-11pm, and sometimes you can catch some good Ruedas. The week we were there we got lucky with performances by this man (i think LAZARO), obvioulsly a teacher and exemplifies i think good ole classy style son/salsa. Next time i'll try to catch him for lessons. Amusing to compare the Rueda savvy and moves of the Cuban women to ours, haha. They have that certain something. Cuban Ruedas i saw were classy, but not with the elaborate moves & smooth Miami/SF style you find in the Bay Area. 1830 has an incredible whimsical fantastical sea / shell / coral constructed sea castle - so enchanting with magical secret hiding places, arches, coves, tunnels etc.

Our visit to Roanel's family house, where he lives with his parents (as do all "kids" and grandkids unless the govt. moves them or they make enough money on the black market to move) in Buena Vista, the outskirts of Havana. We went to visit the elementary school where R.'s mom is a speech therapist. Very well behaved kids. but we stirred them up! then on to Havana Viejo w/ guitar teacher ~ Alberto taught this group of kids from "scratch" & they sound pretty good together now. He works at the Casa de Cultura. The class was held at the gorgeous Convento Belen, an oasis in the middle of the chaos of Havana Vieja. Access inside is very restricted, so i was lucky to get in. Also in this clip, a theatre / dance production which our teacher Johan helped to choreograph ~ a comical spoof on racism in Cuba. A white girl and black youth fall in love, and cause an uproar amongst their respective families & communities. Sooo well done. And where else but in Cuba, would you have a fully enacted sex scene in a musical production? had to include it. It is a total spoof on the idea of the stifled white upper class woman's secret fantasy to get down with the exotic athletic "African" man. Very cute & absolutely classic.

Around Town, Vedado with Raonel (brother of Michel, who we know well from the Bay Area), 1st couple of days. The Malecon, Hotel Libre, Hotel Nacional.

Our casa the first week, near the Malecon ~ seemed to be grand central there for a while. Eve's boyfriend Glendise mangaged to track us down on the street (I guess we sort of stood out??), Tracey's bf visited, Raonel of course, shown here. Johan & other friends and teachers came by. We figured out a system of throwing the key over the balcony, so we didn't have to run downstairs and deal with the 3 locking gates everytime we had visitors.

Raonel's Family at his house in Buena Vista neighborhood just outside of Havana. & the school where his Mom is a speech therapist. We really wreaked havoc with the kids. hahaha. But they all seemed to be studious and diligent in spite of us.

Around Town - Havana Vieja w/ Beby (percussionist w/ Rumba group: Aguiri-Yo), his Mom & Sister handy-crafting, their house. I gave him my best sunglasses ($6 at Ross) and he was thrilled to no end.

Club 1830 Sunday Afternoons is the spot for live music, a mojito and maybe a rueda. Incredible fantastical mosaic sea shell mermaid castle (pix don't do it justice).

Carolina's Footloose Salsa ~ Step out of the box and into the wheeeeeel! email: csalsera@comcast.net 415-479-9385 San Rafael, CA